Why English to Malay is harder than it looks
Malay and Indonesian are close, and not the same. Bilik is a room in Malaysia and a cubicle in Indonesia; percuma and gratis both mean free but belong to different countries. A translation aimed at the wrong one is understood and marked as foreign.
Politeness runs through the pronouns. Awak, kamu, anda and encik sit at different distances, and Malay also uses titles far more than English does. An English message with a bare first name often wants a title added.
Verbs take affixes that change who acts. From baca come membaca (to read) and dibaca (to be read). Getting the affix wrong reverses the direction of the action, which is the most consequential error in this pair.
Repeated words are plurals, not emphasis. Buku-buku means books, not โbook book.โ Translated literally the duplication looks like a mistake, when it is ordinary grammar.
Written by Hardik Vegad, Co-founder, Translatify. Last updated .
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